occupyonline asked: Really? You think Occupy and/or Anonymous (two very separate things btw) are the threat to democracy? You point people to that video, where peaceful protesters (who were assembling rightful under the Constitution) were brutalized by police as your evidence that WE are the threat?! Anonymous and Anti-Sec happen to support Occupy, not necessarily the other way around. There is nothing insidious about Occupy. The primary goal of Occupy is to end corruption - money in politics - to preserve democracy. Read more

gfbe:

You think I don’t recognize the Violet Carson in your logo? You are just a poser. You are not a threat, you are a privileged white kid, who knows nothing of the world around them. Occupy is nothing. Anonymous can wipe out all of the bank records, the stock market and the power grid clean in the click of a button. What has occupy done lately? Or ever for that matter… You are a loser. If you weren’t in college you wouldn’t have time to waste on these things, because the majority of us with jobs don’t have the time or the energy to waste on hippie parties at Z-park. Get a fucking life and realize what is at stake here.

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE COME TO THIS COUNTRY ILLEGALLY EVERY DAY TO GET THEIR PIECE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM! THEY COME HERE TO TAKE THE JOBS YOU DON’T WANT, AND THEY DO IT WILLINGLY! 

IF YOU WANT THE AMERICAN DREAM HANDED TO YOU, I WILL TELL YOU TO JUMP OFF A FUCKING BRIDGE! AMERICA IS THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD BECAUSE IT WAS FOUNDED BY FREE MEN, AND WAS INTENDED TO BE A DEMOCRACY!

So that’s why Occupy is a fucking joke, you don’t even realize that you are aligning yourself with a terrorist organization. You want the pie, but you don’t want to help make it. Or you do want to help make it, but your recipe sucks, so we don’t want to let you near our pie. You have no plan, just a message (and not a very clear one at that). You are like a shitty girlfriend who never tells you what she wants but always what she doesn’t want. You are the douchy college know it all liberal in class who’s parents are paying tuition but decides to stage a walkout because of what they believe in while the kids paying for that same class themselves are busy taking notes. That’s all it is, just a massive walk out by hippies, losers, anarchists, sheep, and douchebags like yourself. Educate yourself. Realize we are not against what your so called movement stands for. Do we want positive change in this country is like asking if we want the sun to rise tomorrow. UUUUGH you make me so mad!

You regurgitate populist politics and play them off as some neo-egalitarian alternative to democracy that isn’t socialism (depending on the communist or anarchist you speak to at an occupy gathering). Ever hear of Huey Long?

Occupy had the audacity to call the protest the day of rage… Thousands of people have been killed in Syria, while no one has been killed in the USA. Your definition of police brutality is a little skewed. And your view of your struggle vs the struggle of those elsewhere in the world is a lot skewed. 

When this is over you will look at it like a big mistake or a dumb phase like wearing Jnco jeans, or supporting the Ku Klux Klan… oh yes I did go there. 

It wasn’t too long ago when the majority of Americans supported another organization because of what they stood for. You are a lemming. Now go to bed, and leave matters like this one for the big kids.

The primary goal of occupy may be to end corruption. But we all want the sun to rise tomorrow. Stop bitching, if you can’t tell us how to fix it, then shut the fuck up! When you have the idea put together on how to fix this shit email it here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT

While you’re at it, we are trying to figure out what to do with this whole Greece thing. Can the geniuses at Occupy help us with that one. The world is going to hell in a hand basket, and all you can tell us is how uncomfortable it is. Fuck off!!!

Love, 
Bear Claw

(Respectfully Anonymous) 

You honestly shouldn’t presume to know anything about me. I have a law degree and a full time job (being paid well below my ability). I’ve supported myself entirely since I was 16. I paid (and am still paying) for all of my education without any help. Who says I am white? I will agree that I am privileged, something I do not take for granted. This, however, does not make my points or positions invalid. 

Violet Carson? And that means? Forgive me if I am not as familiar as you appear to be on the nefarious conspiracies of the proletariat. I created that graphic for Occupy Portland…because I’m from Portland, the Rose City, and, in my mind, it represents peaceful resistance (i.e. flower rather than a weapon). Would you rather I promote change through violence?

If you actually paid attention, you’d see that Anonymous wants to shake things up, so THEY have aligned themselves with Occupy, as Occupy has the chance of bringing about real change in line with their platform. It really is as simple as that. Using your analogy, we both like pie but we have different recipes. If Occupy is nothing and not a threat, then why did you make that post linking Occupy to what you called the “greatest threat to American Democracy”?

Occupy is not seeking insidious change as you so fear, but a change to BRING BACK SOME SEMBLANCE DEMOCRACY. Do you actually believe you are currently living in a democracy? (Technically the U.S. is a representative republic…).

Many Occupiers are strong Constitutionalists. When the US was created, those free men you mention attempted to create a social contract that would create a government to serve the People (as it should). [For sake of time, I won’t go into my criticisms in always harkening back to a time that disregarded minority rights - we’ve progressed and should continue to do so]. In any case, it was designed with numerous checks and balances against concentrations of power to ensure the government would continue to represent the People. However, forefathers did not foresee the growth of an unregulated world power called corporatism. Corporations have no allegiance to the U.S., no morality, they only serve bottom line profit drive often at the expense of People, the environment, sustainability, and long-term logic.

Being unregulated, banks and large corporations have amassed incredible power. They have few checks and balances and monopolize what we see, what we eat, what we buy, where we work, when we work, how we work. They have unprecedented power to throw MILLIONS at political representatives to ensure legislation in their favor - this means allowing for predatory lending that has put millions of those hard working American citizens you champion out of their homes. Vote for whomever you want, but do you really believe congressmen will push to represent YOUR interests when there are lobbyists for corporations lining their pockets with gold so that they will pass legislation that is in opposition to the will of most Americans? Look up approval ratings of Congress and you will see that our “democracy” is not actually functioning as representative of the People. Occupy is protesting to create checks and balances against concentration of power in global corporatism that has lead to the very corruptions our forefathers so fears about our government. But corruptions finds a way, like water through cracks, doesn’t it? 

So let me ask you then, if we both can agree that things need to change and we need solutions and clearly the “experts” we’ve all put our faith in up on capitol hill have dropped the proverbial ball, then how else do you propose for us “regular people” (we’re not geniuses or saviors) to come up with practical solutions without first verbalizing the problem, educating ourselves, and getting more people to participate in the discussion? They have run us out of public spaces where we were meeting to discuss solutions, so now we do so through community GA’s and internet groups. We ARE trying to find solutions. What else would you have us do?

Do you think the forefathers didn’t have long periods of deliberation and long dissertations that, for that time, were probably perceived by many as “bitching” about the status quo? Why exactly do you think many people came to this country? To seek something new and better. They were the dreamers, the complainers, the progressives. 

So what has Occupy done? We’ve brought to the forefront of political discussion the current presence of pervasive corruption, the problems of corporate personhood, the problems of unregulated banking, predatory lending, foreclosures, so on and so forth. We’ve changed the political discussion towards solution-finding rather than problem-burying. Change will never happen if we never seek it. Maybe our recipe sucks, for you, because you hold different ideals. That’s fine, but become part of the discussion rather than a naysayer.

No one with any awareness thinks our current “police brutality against protesters” situation here is as dire as in Syria or Egypt. But to argue that a punch is not violent or brutal simply because a knife to the side is more brutal and more violent, is missing the point. Our fear is that it could become that dire if we continue to “OK” riot-prepared cops squashing peaceful protests. We protest precisely because we DO “realize what is at stake here.”

Source: gfbe